Osprey PDF OCR

Extract text from scanned PDFs without uploading anything. This tool renders each page of your PDF as an image, then runs OCR to recognize and extract the text. Unlike Adobe Acrobat or online OCR services, your documents never leave your device. Everything runs in your browser using pdf.js and Tesseract.js. Works with scanned documents, photographed pages, and image-based PDFs.

How do I extract text from a scanned PDF?

Upload your scanned PDF, select a language, and click Extract Text. The tool renders each page as an image, then uses OCR to recognize and extract the text from every page.

Is my PDF uploaded to a server?

No. Your PDF never leaves your device. All processing — rendering and OCR — happens entirely in your browser using pdf.js and Tesseract.js.

How many pages can I process?

There is no hard limit. Pages are processed one at a time to keep memory usage low. Larger PDFs will take longer but will complete. A 10-page document typically takes 1-2 minutes.

Does this work on regular (text-based) PDFs?

Yes, but for regular PDFs that already have selectable text, our PDF to Text tool is faster since it extracts text directly without OCR. This tool is designed for scanned documents and image-based PDFs where text is embedded in images.